Ask Osho!
Osho on How can I know if a woman has truly fallen in love and is not playing games?

How can I know if a woman has truly fallen in love and is not playing games?

Love is the suprememost game; if you keep testing, you’ll miss its essence. Become whole within, for true love arises not from need, but from the fullness of your being.

— Osho
According to Osho, you can’t ever be sure—love is the suprememost game. If you keep testing, you’ll miss love; play it wholeheartedly instead of analyzing. Our meetings are accidental and often driven by loneliness, so certainty is impossible. A truer love appears only when you don’t need anyone; become whole within—or, if you seek certainty, choose meditation.

You can’t be 100% sure, so enjoy loving playfully, and if you want certainty, grow whole inside or meditate until you don’t need someone to feel complete.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

A Sudden Clash Of Thunder · Discourse 4
1976-08-14 · Buddha Hall · English

How can I know that a woman has fallen in love in reality, not playing games?

It is on the same lines as banks function. If you go to a bank and you need money, they will not give you any. If you don't need money, you have enough, they will come to you and they will always be ready to give you. When you don't need, they are ready to give you; when you need, they are not ready to give you. When you don't need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But then too you cannot be certain whether the OTHER'S love is real or not -- you can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But then there is no need. This continuous anxiety -- whether the other's love is real or…
Read the full discourse →
Es Dhammo Sanantano · Discourse 40
1976-02-09 · Pune · Hindi · English translation

Osho, how will you know that I am in love, and how will I know that you have accepted my love?

If there is love, it will not hide even if you try; if there is no love, no amount of telling can convey it. The very fact of love is its expression. When the sun rises, what further proof do you need that the sun is there? Its being is proof enough. The light of love is greater than the sun’s; you do not see it because you have eyes to see the sun, but no eyes to see love. When love is, it cannot be concealed. The happening of love is the most condensed event in existence; nothing is subtler, nothing more vast. Love is a glimpse of the divine. That is why, when you fall in love with someone, the divine begins to be seen in them. If you cannot see God in your beloved, love has not happened; it must be something else you have mistaken for…
Read the full discourse →
The New Dawn · Discourse 12
1987-06-24 · Chuang Tzu Auditorium · English

Beloved Osho, from your answer to the woman who falls in love with bank balances, not the man, I realized that I can't even see the man, let alone love him. I have accepted my mother's angry conditioning towards men. When a man comes to me with his love, I run away, which encourages him to chase me. This game I play is so ugly. Please Osho, help me to drop this garbage, to be able to see men and to know their beauty, their gifts, their love.

I know another woman in Ahmedabad who waited her whole life for Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to marry her. Jawaharlal was not an enlightened man, and there was every possibility ... And very strangely, in his old age he fell in love with Lady Mountbatten and they were writing such letters to each other that teenagers write. They were so foolish .... But this woman belongs to the richest family of Ahmedabad -- I used to stay in their home -- and she is so ugly. Jawaharlal was a beautiful man; I cannot conceive that he would ever have thought of this woman when any woman would have been ready to marry him. But she was thinking only of her richness. I know both the women. The woman who was in love with J. Krishnamurti used to come to see me also. I have seen in both these women's eyes such…
Read the full discourse →
I Am That · Discourse 14
1980-10-24 · Buddha Hall · English

Osho, I would like to fall in love, but I am afraid of beautiful women, and so afraid of love, and I don't know why. Why is it so hard for me to fall in love?

Parivartan, that thing you are certainly saying with some intelligence. And when you are thinking and planning a well planned life, then fall in love with an ugly woman. It will be difficult in the beginning, but then it is sweet all the way! And always think of the future -- that's how calculating people do. What it is? Just a bitter pill in the beginning, it's okay, but then it is very health-giving. Ugly women are medicinal, but beautiful women are sweet in the beginning and very bitter in the end. And this is not my advice to you; Gautam Buddha also says the same thing -- in a different context, of course. He cannot be so truthful as I am. He says: The world is sweet in the beginning but very bitter in the end, and the other world is very bitter in the beginning but very sweet…
Read the full discourse →
Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 · Discourse 10
1978-12-30 · Buddha Hall · English

Osho, I have fallen in love with chuang tzu, with joshu, with mumon, with bodhidharma. How can I not follow them? I feel already they have transformed me. How can I not be thankful?

Let me tell you one anecdote first. When Rabbi Nor, Rabbi Moudekai's son, assumed the succession after his father's death, his disciples noted that there were a number of ways in which he conducted himself differently to his father, and asked him about this. 'I do just as my father did,' he replied.'He did not imitate and I do not imitate.' Meditate over this anecdote. He said,'I do just as my father did. He did not imitate and I do not imitate.' If you really understand Joshu, Bodhidharma or me, you will not imitate -- because I have not imitated, because Bodhidharma never imitated anybody. Joshu used to say to his disciples,'If you utter Buddha's name, go and rinse your mouth immediately.' Joshu also used to say,'If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him immediately.' And he used to worship Buddha every day. Ordinarily Zen looks puzzling, but…
Read the full discourse →
Keep Exploring

Related Questions on Love